I recently gave a Keynote Speech at the Women and Sport conference in London. The theme: Developing Female Leaders in for the sport world and what can be learnt from the business world. It appears my speech struck a serious cord with participants based on the flurry of communication I have since received.
I shared my personal and professional experiences which impact the development of female leaders. The key themes? Segregation, Sport as a Performance Driver, Cultural Challenges of the male-dominated business world and, the Way Forward.
Segregation
As a Venezuelan Greek, I was brought up in 2 multi-cultural context – ethnically and gender-wise. Ethnically, I have always been different, from day 1. I was also blessed with a brother. I had all his cast offs – his BMX bicycle, his clothing; we would play together – Lego, the Scalextric, card games; it thus became natural for me to “play with the boys”. I felt comfortable and sought out being with guys and being just as good, (if not better…), than them.
As such, sport was very important to me, and I was in the school teams for basketball, volleyball and tennis; I always wanted to train with the boys. The same at university when in the Volleyball and Rowing teams.
I believe I am but one example of the genuine benefit of sport:
• Girls who participate in sports have higher self-esteem and pride in themselves.
• Sport is where girls can learn goal-setting, strategic thinking and the pursuit of excellence in performance and other achievement-oriented behaviours – critical skills necessary for success in the workplace.
• Sports help girls develop leadership skills
I believe the biggest rift in the male/female gender challenge comes from the Gender Segregation we face during our formative years. Girls and boys are encouraged to play and perform sport separately. This is then spread into daily and social life, where gender-based segregation becomes the norm. Boys turn into men and feel more comfortable being in the company of other men in the context of work. They network well together, and fight it out in business and able to then go for a drink as chums in the pub or social equivalent. Women are excluded from traditional male rituals. In this environment of cultural segregation, machismo and stereotyping become prevalent, as, in the most extreme cases, women are seen as alien and relevant for only a number of activities…
Cultural Challenges
Fundamentally, the corporate world has been traditionally a man’s world, and systemically, leadership behaviours that are rewarded are those of men. This Gender-based Segregation leads to either:
• Stereotyping – you can’t do this because you are a woman or assumptions made on your behalf or
• Are not accepted within the social norms of the business (including the omni-present Old Boys’ network).
Enlightened companies are raising the Diversity flag, and trying to address the apparent lack of organisational (and political) savvy for women – through Women’s Networks and training-based empowerment interventions. These are good starting points, but I believe one-off interventions are not leading to change required; they are but what I call the Band Aid Approach. They are momentarily alleviating but are not curing the symptom of cultural exclusion.
The Way Forward
A lot more needs to happen, and this is about culture-change and re-education of the status quo on the inherent benefits of a diverse organisation, rather just than “fixing” women. I believe firmly in the model for Transforming of Business Culture which we developed at Aquitude and consists of 4 key areas:
Appreciate differences:
Recognise Individual DNA and motivations – understand that one size does not fit all; women and men are wired differently, and we have different social norms and codes of behaviour in terms of our management and leadership styles; these need to be incorporated into the professional working fabric
Demonstrate flexibility in terms of career transitioning:
This relates to managing career transitions; in the context of sports, from the Competitive Sphere to the Business of Sport (National Governing Bodies, Media, Sponsorship Agencies, etc); We have developed a process called Career Course to manage the transitions of women in their professional careers.
Engage Collaboratively:
Diverse teams perform more effectively than homogeneous teams, as well as being more innovative. We need to embrace opportunities of innovation from gender mix and cross-fertilise thinking between various bodies and organisations.
This is why we have created the forum called bidiversity.com (business innovation through diversity), to encourage cross-fertilisation of thinking between policy shapers, industry, academia and business on gender and ethnic diversity as a driver for innovation.
Express Care:
Care about the employee, their world, their family – enable and encourage service offerings and work practices to enable altruism (women have burden of family and, if not, caring responsibilities of the elderly).
All of this needs to happen in order to Break the Stereotypes by knocking unconscious bias on its head – you can be a woman and a top sailor, or a woman and a Chief Technologist.
So, what can the sports industry learn from business? I believe all bodies need to collaborate in a concerted manner to support women in terms of:
1. Promoting female role models and their achievements (and how they have broken down the stereotypes) – this is where internal and external communication is key.
2. Mentoring is critical to culture change. I do not espouse the purely traditional model of a single mentor. The Ancient Goddess Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom, assumed the shape of Mentor, a family friend of Odysseus’ son Telemachus, giving him prudent counsel. Since then, wise and trusted advisers have been called “mentors”. We believe in the aptly-named Athena Mentoring Programme that we have designed in harnessing the power of peer Mentoring between business women (and men) and sports-women will lead to greater appreciation and even funding for sportswomen and sporting activities.
3. Encourage Active Personal Brand and Visibility management and promotion for both sports-women (and businesswomen). Women need embrace the art of self-promotion, creating platforms to build their personal brands. This is where technology works with womens’ strengths of communication through new media such as blogging and Twitter and building engagement with fans. A great example is top female sailor, Sam Davies, who came 3rd in the gruelling Vendee Globe this year; according to Yacht Sponsorship.com, Sam managed to be completely ‘on brand’, sailing solo in the southern ocean. Her tweets and blogs are fun, individual and highly engaging, attracting a loyal fan-base of new generation female sailors.
4. Fight the cultural comfort zone and reject the “not invented here” syndrome: set transparent and diverse recruitment processes and develop a leadership pipeline that is ethnically and gender-diverse.
Let us stop trying to just “fix” women: whilst it is important to provide forums and mechanisms to support women and build women’s confidence, it is critical to hit the issues of Gender Segregation and systemic bias head on, where the Alpha Male typology is the basis and the norm for leadership, with only associated behaviours being recognised and rewarded… We need to make change and educate all on the benefits of the Ying and Yang – men and women working, as well as performing competitively together.
